F. M. Gocek, “Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians” (Oxford UP, 2015)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · May 11, 2015 · 1h 6m

Adolf Hitler famously (and probably) said in a speech to his military leaders “Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?” This remark is generally taken to suggest that future generations won’t remember current atrocities, so there’s no reason not to commit them. The implication is that memory has something like an expiration date, that it fades, somewhat inevitably, of its own accord. At the heart of Fatma Muge Gocek’s book is the claim that forgetting doesn’t just happen. Rather, forgetting (and remembering) happens in a context, with profound political and…